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Replace motherboard on OLD Computer

jasonculp

Posted 17 March 2008 - 07:37 PM

jasonculp

Member

Member

91 posts

I need a little assistance….well really advice.

My current system:

Is OLD

AMD Athlon XP 1500+

2.5 GB Ram

XP Pro

2 old GeForce Cards

2 old CRT’s

IDE Disk Drives

I am having a few problems, and my system is slow. I am not a gamer. I do a little photo editing - cropping/printing (only when my wife makes me). I do quite a bit of database/spread sheet work. Do a lot of GeekU stuff too.

I would like to bring this old PC at least up to the year 2000.

What I was wanting to do is to replace the Mother Board and Processor and keep the Hard Drive. This has really turned into more than I wanted. I am currently saving up to do a complete build but I am not ready to do it at this time. I will use this computer as a 3rd string backup when I get my new one built!

I was hoping to do this without a reinstall of XP until I get some stuff backed up…

What I want is a cheap/good:

Case

Power Supply

Mother Board

Processor

Memory

Video Card/s

Trying to keep the price down….so I have more to spend later. It wouldn't take much to be a lot better than what I have!

jasonculp

Posted 17 March 2008 - 08:07 PM

reconman

Posted 18 March 2008 - 01:55 AM

reconman

Member

Member

406 posts

I'm assuming your hard drive is ATA? If that's the case, I would honostly consider building an entirely new system now which can be upgraded when needed. I personally believe you're wasting your money if you're going to buy $600 worth of obsolete hardware just so you don't need to replace your hard drive.

Here's what I would suggest, for $600 you can build a computer that is in the current standards (SATA, PCI Express etc...). You could most likely get by with spending less than $600 since you're not going to be doing any heavy duty tasks, such as gaming, on it.

Motherboard - $90Graphics Card - $90 (It has more than enough power for your needs)RAM - $43 (MUCH faster than DDR RAM which Is what I'm guessing you're still using.)CPU - $125500GB HD - $95 (you can always get a smaller hard drive for less money but it would be a much smarter choice to stick with a 500GB HD that's around $100 instead of a GOOD250gb HD that's $60-$80.)430W PSU - $40Case - $70 (you can find cheaper cases but this is a pretty nice one for $70)SATA DVD burner/drive - $30

And maybe a smaller capacity hard drive so you're not over the budget.Case is something you should pick yourself, I just recommended the one above because I have it and its a great case, you can get some cheap one as well to stay in budget.

jasonculp

Posted 18 March 2008 - 08:34 PM

jasonculp

Member

Topic Starter

Member

91 posts

Thanks reconman and kamille316 for all of your help! I basically combined all 3 of our ideas to make what I think will be a great computer. It also looks like this setup will have plenty of room to grow. I ended up spending $ 900 after it was all said and done. I bought a new router and some software. It really adds up, but with y'alls help the computer itself was only $682.